Canadiens vs. Hurricanes
Monday at Carolina’s PNC Center, 7 p.m., SNE, RDS, TSN Radio 690
Shuffling the deck: The Canadiens have won five of their last six games, but coach Michel Therrien is looking for a little more offensive punch. To that end, he’s stacked a line with David Desharnais and P.A. Parenteau flanking Tomas Plekanec. There’s some offensive potential here, but Plekanec is the only member of the trio who understands the term defensive responsibility. Lars Eller gets Jiri Sekac back on his line with Brandon Prust to keep things honest. Michael Bournival will be a healthy scratch as Sven Andrighetto joins Manny Malhotra and Dale Weise on the fourth line. The major change on defence has Nathan Beaulieu getting a chance to prove he can be a top-four defenceman as Sergei Gonchar’s partner.
Don’t blame the goalie: Cam Ward has never quite matched his performance when he led the Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup back in 2006, but he’s not the reason why Carolina is at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with a 10-21-4 record. This team is called the Hurricanes, but the offence hasn’t produced more than a gentle breeze this season. Ward has a decent 2.42 goals-against average, but that’s not going to win many games when the offence is producing a mere two goals a game. Buffalo is the only team with a worse offensive record at 1.86 goals per game. Defenceman Justin Faulk leads the Hurricanes in scoring with 20 points, but he’s also a team-low minus-12. Eric Staal and Jeff Skinner are proven offensive talents, but they lack a supporting cast. Carey Price will start in goal for the Canadiens.
Injury update: Defenceman Bryan Allen came off the injured-reserve list over the Christmas holidays, which means the Canadiens are close to being 100-per-cent healthy. It also means Therrien has some personnel decisions to make. Allen and fellow defencemen Mike Weaver figure to be the healthy scratches on defence in Carolina. Jiri Tlusty and Alexander Semin are both listed as day-to-day by the Hurricanes with upper-body injuries. Andrej Nestrasil is on the injured-reserve list with an upper-body injury. Jordan Staal, who has been out all season recovering from a broken right leg, will make his season debut against the Canadiens.
Back-to-back times two: This is the first game of a four-game road trip for the Canadiens that is made up of two back-to-back situations. The Canadiens are in Florida to play the Panthers on Tuesday night and then have a couple of days off before playing in New Jersey on Friday and Pittsburgh on Saturday. The Canadiens are back at the Bell Centre on Tuesday, Jan. 6, to play Tampa Bay.
